Some missing game versions

[Flaose]

MVP Software has recently (I think) released many of their old games for free download. You can see the whole list at http://pub.mvpsoft.com/attic/registered/.

The games on RGB Classic Games that are affected by this are:

• Arcy 2
• Hoosier City
• Pickle Wars
• Robomaze II
• Robomaze III
• Thor's Hammer (possibly)

I hope this is helpful!

[MrFlibble]

MVP Software has recently (I think) released many of their old games for free download. You can see the whole list at http://pub.mvpsoft.com/attic/registered/.

The games on RGB Classic Games that are affected by this are:

• Arcy 2
• Hoosier City
• Pickle Wars
• Robomaze II
• Robomaze III
• Thor's Hammer (possibly)

Their version of Thor's Hammer is already on the site. As for the other games, we had a discussion with DOSGuy about it a while ago:

I assume that MVP has a permanent license to distribute those games, and Dave Snyder (who I believe was the sole proprietor of MVP) probably assumed that he had the right to set the price to $0 since they weren't selling any more. Maybe he did, but the copyright on at least some of those games could belong to the developers, and they may not have been consulted. Assuming that MVP owns the distribution rights, but not the copyright on those games, they may be allowed to give them away, but they can't declare them freeware. That's one of those "gratis versus libre" distinctions. Basically, the games may have no price (gratis, or "free as in free beer"), but I don't know if MVP has the right to say that the games can be freely distributed (libre, or "free as in free speech"). From a legal perspective, it may boil down to whether the developers granted MVP a non-transferable license to distribute their games, or if they granted MVP all rights to distribution, which would empower MVP to sell, transfer or extend their distribution rights to anyone or everyone else. Since MVP says that you can't redistribute those games "without our written permission", that suggests that they have the right to grant such permission, but I'm not sure if they do. If I'm right that MVP doesn't own the copyright on some or all of those games, that would explain why Redwood Games continues to sell a game that their distributor is giving away for free.

I always intended to get the answers to those questions, until I found out that Dave Snyder died in 2007, shortly after the last time I was in contact with him. I'm assuming, at this point, that it would be easier and better to contact the developers, but I've just never gotten around to it. Perhaps that will finally happen this weekend.
<...>
Okay, here's a list of who the copyright is listed as for each of the games that they're giving away.

Arcy 2	None found
Crusade in Space	Copyright 1994 Glacier Edge Technology
GameBuilder Pro	Copyright 1991, 1993 Ed Simpson
Hoosier City	Copyright 1992 Wetware
Jack Flash	Copyright 1994 Caps Software
King Arthur's K.O.R.T.	Copyright 1994 Brandon McMullen
Pickle Wars	Copyright 1993 Karen Crowther
Rapid Response	Copyright 1992 MVP Software
Robomaze II	Copyright 1991 MVP Software
Robomaze III	Copyright 1991 MVP Software
Thor's Hammer	Copyright 1995 Escape Programming, LLC

So it looks like we can say that MVP Software owns Rapid Response and Robomaze II and III. Interestingly the developer, Wetware, owns Hoosier City. Apparently Keith Laverty negotiated a different deal with MVP for that game.

I can't find a copyright declaration anywhere in Arcy 2, even in the license file! MVP is clearly the distributor, but I can't tell who owns the game. For what it's worth, it's made by the same company as Jack Flash, which is owned by developer Caps Software.
<...>
Escape Programming declared Thor's Hammer freeware upon my request on 16 July 2009 and, interestingly, MVP seems to have put the registered version on their website on 3 July 2009. I know that Brian Cox spoke with MVP (presumably to David Snyder's son Chris) before declaring the game freeware, so that might be why they did it.

To sum up, MVP Software has the right to distribute the games for free, however third parties are not allowed to freely redistribute the games (with the exception of Thor's Hammer which was liberated at DOSGuy's request in the first place) unless permission is obtained from copyright holders. I'm not sure on the status of Robomaze games, but I assume DOSGuy investigated into this matter, and the decision to include the full versions on the site is up to him.

[MrFlibble]

This page mentions Abuse shareware v1.01, the file supposedly being abuse101.zip.

Here the same file is simply called v1.0 (meaning it's probably the same thing as v1.0 mentioned above). This version was released both as a single file and split into smaller parts.

Version 1.01 is also mentioned at Lord Soth's:
http://happypuppy.com/games/lordsoth/abuse.htm

[MrFlibble]

Abuse beta 0.3.2 was available for Linux:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sy ... FftklJYSsJ

The message is dated Aug 28, 1995, placing this release just before DOS v0.33.

[MrFlibble]

Shareware versions of Abuse for Linux:

• v1.05 (20.09.1995): linux-abuse.1.0.5.tar.gz
• v1.10 (23.10.1995): linux-abuse.1.1.0.tar.gz

[MrFlibble]

Yeah I know about that, but I've yet to find any source mentioning any beta of Blood being leaked (plenty of sources regarding the alpha leak of course) so I'm wondering if it was actually a legit release but the developer who put together the release just forgot to remove the "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" disclaimer from the start-up screen. Been looking through scene releases from 1997 and found no mention of a leaked beta either (though I realize that not all leaked releases were released through the scene).

EDIT: Also if it was leaked, why would it only include the first three levels?

The information found on the official Blood website confirms that this was a legit, albeit magazine-only release:

The magazine version that you have is only available from magazine CDs. The magazine version is a very early build of Blood, and it only has 3 levels. The full shareware has 8 levels, and the full registered Blood has 42 levels and 4 episodes! Also, the problems that are in the Magazine demo have been fully addressed in the latest shareware version of Blood ( version 1.02 ). Download a copy of the shareware from HERE, or buy the CD copy in the stores for $9.95 that includes cinematic Softimage® rendered cutscenes, a music video from Type O Negative, and a coupon for $10 off the full registered version of Blood! [source]

[Litude]

Thanks for digging up that information MrFibble. Nice to have confirmation that it is actually a legit release.

[MrFlibble]

Monolith Productions
Blood
Internet Shareware v1.10 - Installer [Added to the site]

Found thanks to Hallfiry's catalogue

[MrFlibble]

Thanks to Hallfiry's wonderful catalogue version 1.0 of In Pursuit of Greed demo was found on this CD. The files have been unpacked by the magazine editors (who also added their own installer). There might have been an installer originally, since Channel 7 used installers for both the later versions of In Pursuit of Greed and Iron Seed shareware.

I have repacked the files and uploaded the ZIP here: greed.zip

Thanks to Hallfiry's catalogue yet again, another early version of the game was found on this Interactive Entertainment CD (CD image @ archive.org). The internal version number is 1.020, and the date stamp on the game executable is from Sep 8, 1995. I've repacked the files and uploaded it here: greed102.zip

This version is much closer to v2.0. The "Veek Lord" monster is no longer present, and the "Big Head" monster is added in this version. Also added is what seems to be a multiplayer level with space station textures and no monsters.

[MrFlibble]

It appears that there has been an official Quake beta v1.05 release, which was available in the form of packed game executables from id Software's FTP:

Sep 13, 1996 - There is a BETA distribution of 1.05 up on our ftp site.
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/unsup/q105beta.exe

It includes quake.exe winded.exe progs.dat, and a zip of the latest .qc files. Back up your current version before messing with this, in case something is broken.

There is new source code available. ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com//idstuff/source/qutils.zip has win-32 compiled versions and VC++ projects for all of the quake command line utilities. The qbsp/light/vis programs have not been tested all that well here, because we still use a dec alpha running unix for most of our work, but it has been converted from doubles to floats, which should reduce the memory requirements quite a bit (and possibly cause more numeric instabilities...).

I also uploaded the DOOM ipxsetup / sersetup source code, which we haven't had on our ftp site before.

We are going to begin internal testing of a 1.05 Quake release tomorrow. When we upload for general release, we will also upload the current .qc source. The old qcc.tar.gz file is still present on the ftp site for the original .qc files for now. [source]

Thanks to Hallfiry's catalogue I've found what seems to be original files of that distribution on this CD. The main files pack is q105beta.exe, and beta5e.exe is a small bug fix for it. The fix is actually available from id Software FTP: beta5a.exe.

[Edit] The beta patch itself is found (zipped) here: q105beta.zip. It also includes the source code.

[MrFlibble]

id Software
Quake
Official ports:

• VQuake v1.06 Beta 10 (Dec 2, 1996): rrq106ba.zip
• VQuake v1.06 Beta 12 (Jan 6, 1997): rrq106bc.zip
• VQuake v1.07 beta 5 (Mar 3, 1997): rrq107b5.zip
• VQuake v1.08 beta 1 (Oct 30, 1997): vq108b1.zip
• GLQuake beta (Jan 22, 1997): glquake1.zip
• GLQuake v0.92 (Mar 12, 1997): glq3_11.zip
• GLQuake v0.92 (Mar 28, 1997): glq3_28.zip
• GLQuake v0.94 (Aug 9, 1997): glq8_09.zip
• GLQuake v0.95 (Aug 27, 1997): glq8_27.zip
• GLQuake v0.96 (Oct 22, 1997): glq1022.exe
• GLQuake v0.97 (Nov 14, 1997): glq1114.exe
• WinQuake v0.992 (Feb 12, 1997): wq0992.zip
• WinQuake v1.00 (Mar 22, 1997): wq100.zip
• Linux port v1.01 (Aug 9, 1998): intel_linux_quake101.tgz

[MrFlibble]

Abuse shareware v1.01 was found recently among new CDs submitted to Hallfiry's collection:
http://kultcds.com/Catalog/index.php?n= ... 59948&o=da

Download: ABUSE101.ZIP [Added to the site]

The date stamp on the game executable is from Sep 16, 1995.

[Flaose]

Is there a reason that Super ZZT, a game that is listed as freeware, only has the shareware episode for download?

edit: Actually, it appears that the v2.0 entry is just mislabelled as Shareware, it is the Registered Version. Sorry about that.

[MrFlibble]

edit: Actually, it appears that the v2.0 entry is just mislabelled as Shareware, it is the Registered Version. Sorry about that.

That needs to be checked, thanks for reporting!

However, there are games which are freeware but the full version is not included on the site. It's either because the full version is not available at the moment, or because the author(s) do not allow free distribution by third parties, although you can get a free copy from authorized sources. One example of this is Abuse (full game data is only allowed to be distributed with certain source ports - more details on this here), and another Amulets & Armor (not featured here at RGB Classic Games yet).

[Cire]

Could someone please reupload the newer Doom95 3.0 Shareware version (November 96) from the first post?